Every year sometime during the Christmas week Old Santa would hand out
a
sack of treats in front of the Salvation Army to kids. The treat
I
remember the most was a small paper sack that contained an oramge--some
nuts including what we called [nigger toes] and hard Christmas candy
.
My brothers Bill and Kenneth would find out what day this was going
to
happen and we would all go early to get in line. We all
went--Bill-Kenneth-myself-Charles-Johnny Carl--Richard and also our
cousins Freddy-Percy and Herman. I don't remember how long we
stood in
line but I can tell you this was a real treat to all of us.
My brothers and I found out on our own that Santa was a fake
because we
observed there would be a fat Santa one day and a skinny one the next
day on the street corners. Since he never came to our house this helped
us cope with the situation. This is a memory during the worst
time of
the great depression.
Since this treat was something we only got at Christmas and it was
the
highlight of our early Christmases I never pass up an opportunity to
make a contribution to the Salvation Army kettles.